Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/483

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 465

is probably the more important, and the one upon which both medical and philanthropic authorities rightly lay the greatest emphasis. Everywhere today we find men of practical experi- ence and sound judgment seeking to solve the problems of crime and poverty and disease by positive measures of precaution, by attacking the evils at their very source. No branch of the municipal service illustrates this better than the Health Depart- ment, for, as Mayor Low remarked recently, "it is both easier and better to create conditions that make for health than it is to cure people after they have been taken sick." 1

The authority of the department extends over the entire city and the waters immediately adjacent, as well as over the waters of the bay within quarantine limits. As already mentioned, the powers of the board are enormous, and it is its duty to take all necessary measures for the preservation of human life, and the care, prevention, and protection of the public health. 2 For this purpose it draws up from time to time, as occasion requires, a series of regulations which are embodied in the Sanitary Code. Thus, besides enforcing all existing laws relating to the health of the city, any measure adopted by the board and published in the " City Record" for two weeks becomes a part of this code, and as such is enforcible by civil or criminal proceedings, or both. Indeed, the city charter expressly provides that the board may embrace within the Sanitary Code "all matters and subjects to which, and so far as, the power and authority of said Department of Health extends, ttot limiting the application to the subject of health only." 3 A still clearer conception of the powers of the department can be derived from a consideration of the work intrusted to the various inspectors. But it may be repeated here that, while the New York laws relating to tenement houses are now generally enforced by the new Tenement House Department, 4 the Board of Health still has full authority to

1 See his "Talk," quoted in Charities, September 20, 1902, p. 270.

2 Charter of 1901, chap, xix, sees. 1168, 1169. 3 Sec. 1172.

4 By an amendment of the city charter of 1901 (chap, xixa) all the duties of the Board of Health with reference to tenement houses were conferred not transferred upon the new Tenement House Department. This change, of course, afforded an immense relief to the old Department, for it allowed it to concentrate its efforts upon